Legend has it that in the year 1632 Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi flew with wings he cobbled together, supported by strong scirocco winds, from the top of Istanbul's Galata Tower all across the Bosphorus and landed in Usküdar, about 3.5 km towards the east. Many historians dispute the truth of this story for various reasons, one being that the only source mentioning this event is a short entry in the travelogue of the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi. He concludes that sultan Murat the IVth watched the alleged flight from his palace and eventually declared "this is a man to be scared of; such people should not be kept alive" and exiled Ahmet Çelebi to the farthest corner of his realm, Algeria. There, at the ripe old age of 30, Ahmed Çelebi died. His nickname "Hezarfen" means "man of a thousand sciences".
Hezarfen's departure point, the Galata Tower is one of the most prominent landmarks of Istanbul and therefore often appears in my (and others') cityscapes, intentionally or not:
While I was crossing Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn, I was delighted to see the tower reflected in the window (of one of the bridge's support structures). In order to add an extra layer to the photo, I waited for one of the many fishermen pull his protein out of the sea. Or maybe it's the tower that's the extra layer!
Sometimes the tower is just "there"...
...and sometimes I make a conscious effort to photograph the tower. This is very much a cliche, a view from the garden of the Süleymaniye Mosque over the chimneys of the neighbouring medrese (a school in the Ottoman days).
All three photos were made on the same day whilst on a short trip to Istanbul over last Christmas. I used to bring along analog cameras and B&W film on my travels. But it's become so cumbersome with the security procedures and the constant anguish that the film might get fogged in the x-ray machines, especially now that CT Scanners are being gradually installed, that I now prefer a Nikon DSLR while travelling. I still use my old manual focus Nikkors though, as they are extremely rugged and perform like a charm. Here, the first two pictures were made with the humble but superb AI 50mm/f1.8 and the last one with the AI 200mm/f4.0 Nikkor, which again is optically excellent and relatively compact.
Totally unrelated to my musings above, I'd like to recommend this documentary about Dorothea Lange. It's been uploaded to Youtube just a few days ago. I watched the 2 hour documentary twice, I found it that good. What an amazing photographer she was but what a sad end she had to face.
Hi Omar - firstly, Happy New Year to you and yours - hope it is a really good one.
ReplyDeleteThere's some interesting photos there - my favourite is the dog, as there are heads pointing in all sorts of directions!
The tower itself looks very beautiful, almost Northern European if you know what I mean.
The old Nikkors are superb lenses aren't they - the 28mm f2.8 Ai-s is an absolute cracker - virtually no distortion and really excellent for architecture.
It's a shame the world is making things harder for film users though - they do say that current scanners don't damage film at all and if you're only going to one country, there's not too much to worry about. I used Kentmere 400 in France last year and everything is absolutely fine.
Thanks for the tip-off on the documentary - I will have a look when I get a chance.
Hi Phil. Happy new year to you and yours as well.
ReplyDeleteThe dog is quite a cliche for Istanbul. The city is literally owned by stray dogs (and cats). I initially walked by the scene, but then changed my mind and retraced my steps to make a few photos.
The tower does indeed look north European. I hadn't look at it that way.
And yes, the old Nikkors beautiful. They aren't maybe up to the most modern designs, but then they make up for it with compactness and durability. Especially compactness means portability and that is very important for me (the main reason I cherish my 45mm/2.8 pancake Nikkor).
As to x-rays, the old tech machines are fine. It's the new CT scanners that are said to ruin film in one single pass.
All the best...
You're lucky you're not in India - that's where the dogs rule the streets!
DeleteThe 28 is quite small and definitely worth a look - quality is second to none and as you say incredibly durable too.
We went through Edinburgh and CDG - presumably modern scanners . . and everything was fine.
Hope the darkroom is coming together.
I have four 28mm Nikkors, Phil :) The MF f/2.8 you mention, the AF f/2.8, the MF f/3.5 and the MF f/2.0...all are good, but I tend to use the f/2.0 the most.
DeleteThe darkroom is coming together indeed.
Blimey - you've nearly got as many Nikkors as me . . .
DeleteGlad to hear it about the darkroom too.
I'm well stocked up with 28mms but I'm short on the 35mm focal length :)
Delete